Hi!
Do yiou guys keep all your studio stuff connected 24 hours?
What about MTBF? Aren´t we reducing parts lifetime?
I know that it is very stressing for electronic devices if you keep powering it on/off, lots of start-up current transients and so.
I turn off everything if I plan to travel or stay good part of the day out.
wanna hear it from ya.

Yeah, i'm affraid it will catch fire when i'm away. The mixer stays on 24/7 but the other gear i turn off. Like my monitors which develop much heat when on. Also the wallwarts of synthesizers can get pretty hot after being on a while. I know it stresses the electronics but if i let them on it stresses me!

I know a lot of guys who say yes to keeping your gear on all the time. I turn mine off everynight unless it,s like 5:00am and I got to be back at 8:00am. I have everything ran through Furman Power Conditioners so it's just a couple of switches to turn off. I would agree that a lot of the gear gets too hot and that's when things can go wrong.

:d: If it wasn't for those fine switching power supplies, Ya turn em off, and pray they turn on again.

I work in a place where some gear has been left on for the last 13 to 15 years. I found that heating and cooling has an effect on circuit boards, caps, and other components. There was a Tascam board in one of the production rooms, been on for over 12 years. Ya, the meter lights didn't work.

We shut down non-operational CPU's, delicate digital equipment, video and comp monitors. Most everything else, ton's of gear, is left on. Even the Cameras in studio A are on 24/7, iris closed, and capped, and chargers etc. Except for certain switching supplies, failer rate related to circuits has been negligable.

I have more of an electronic failer rate at home, with TV's, VCR's, and other small electronics, also burn out way more light bulbs. I'm guessing turning things on and off shortens the lifespan. But, it may not always be safe to leave things on no matter what.

What do you do with all your wall rats? Even the ones that run your cordless phone and answering machine, and all the other rats? They are power supplies, eh? :d:

Keep in mind that until a capacitor charges it is almost a dead short. This is why you often see the lights dim when you flip on certain components. This "short" stresses power supplies and components on the curcuit boards (heat).
Heating and cooling cycles are also very bad on most components (resistors, ICs, caps) not to mention the soldered connections.
A good rule of thumb is that if there are moving parts (like a cassette motor / balancer)then it's a good idea to turn off this equipment when not in use. The only exception to this would be a computer's hard disk - leave it on.
As far as wall worts - if they are getting too hot then they are to small for the job. Just because a certain device might recommend a 500ma 12 VDC adapter doesn't mean things wouldn' be better served with a nice beefier 1 amp job that would run much cooler.

I've heard it's best to keep everything on all the time except tube equipment, which, I've been told, doesn't mind being turned off and back on again later. I've also heard that you shouldn't turn on gear with the power conditioner switch, but turn on each device individually. A bunch on techs told me this, so that's what I try to do, since I don't know $*^t about electronics.